


when we're alone (it's like we're home)

by fromiftowhen



Category: The Rookie (TV 2018)
Genre: Chenford Week 2020, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Moving In Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25264243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromiftowhen/pseuds/fromiftowhen
Summary: He holds the coffee out to her before she even has the door all the way open.“Why is it so early? Why are we doing this again?” She all but whines, and he really, truly hopes there isn’t a day in the future where he doesn’t find it charming.“Good morning to you, too. Take the coffee,drinkthe coffee. The earlier we start, the earlier we finish,” he reminds her, and she groans.OR -- Tim and Lucy spend a day off doing something everyone dreads, with a little help from their friends. It's worth the early wake up.
Relationships: Tim Bradford/Lucy Chen
Comments: 16
Kudos: 121
Collections: Chenford Week 2020





	when we're alone (it's like we're home)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends! Happy Chenford week! This is for the off duty prompt, so I had to involve some other off-duty officers (and one lawyer. And a dog, but he never works.) 
> 
> Title from Home by Reese Lansangan. 
> 
> I'm fromiftowhen on Tumblr, let's be friends!

He holds the coffee out to her before she even has the door all the way open. 

“Why is it so early? Why are we doing this again?” She all but whines, and he really, truly hopes there isn’t a day in the future where he doesn’t find it charming. 

“Good morning to you, too. Take the coffee, _drink_ the coffee. The earlier we start, the earlier we finish,” he reminds her, and she groans. 

“But I barely slept last night,” she mumbles, pressing her cheek against his chest and burrowing into him. “You’re cozy.” 

He sighs and wraps an arm around her shoulders, holding her close. “I know,” he laughs. “I got that impression after the fifteenth text message. Did you two have fun?”

A low rumble comes from the living room in front of him, the anguished noise of waking up way earlier than you want to, probably with a hangover. 

“Jackson, get _up,”_ she calls, but it’s mostly muffled by his chest. He laughs and runs a hand over her messy bedhead. 

“I think we had _too much_ fun,” she whispers, and he lets her go so she can rummage through some stuff on the counter. “Oh, thank god,” she mutters, unearthing a bottle of aspirin and swallowing a couple down with her coffee. 

Behind them, Jackson staggers to his feet, looking just as worse for wear. “What’d we _do,_ and _why’d_ we do it?” He asks. One shirt sleeve is entirely off his arm, rucked up under his armpit, and there are throw pillow creases in his cheek. 

“I don’t know, man,” he laughs, “but here.” Tim holds out a cup of coffee for him too, and Jackson makes his way across the room hesitantly. 

“Oh, _bud,”_ Lucy laughs, and she sounds a little more awake, a little better off in comparison. “I _think_ we watched _all the Step Up movies_ and thought we could suddenly dance, maybe?” 

Tim reaches for his phone and scrolls through a couple messages. “Hang on, it makes sense now. _‘I don’t know how to dance —_ spelled incorrectly, somehow — _do you still want to live with me?’_ I said no, by the way.”

“Okay, I’m gonna go back to sleep then,” she says, turning to head toward her bedroom. He grins and reaches out to catch her around the waist gently. 

“Not so fast,” he whispers. “I’ll get over it, or I’ll find you an adult dance class, if it becomes an issue in our relationship,” he smirks. 

_“That’s right,”_ Jackson mutters. “No more homemade drinks, you’re a heavy pour,” he says. “By the way, she thinks you’re hotter than Channing Tatum.” 

“I don’t know who that is,” he says, smiling down at her. “But, _clearly.”_

“So smug,” she whispers, pressing up on her tiptoes to kiss him. She tastes like coffee and sleep, and maybe something that’s tinged with vodka, but he smiles into it anyway. “Happy moving day,” she says, her lips ghosting over his. 

“Happy moving day,” he says, leaning back in to kiss her again. 

“Y’all are gonna make me ralph,” Jackson groans, reaching around Lucy for the aspirin. 

“Yeah they are,” a voice deadpans, and he reluctantly pulls back to see Angela and Wesley in the doorway. “Break it up, we’ve got shit to do,” she says. 

“That’s Angela for _good morning,_ morning you guys.” Wesley says, laughing. “Big day. Ready?”

He smiles down at Lucy. Her hair is a mess, she’s still in pajamas, and glancing around, he’s fairly sure the apartment is only half-packed. But yeah, they’re ready.

She nods against his chest. “Thanks for coming to help, you guys. I wanted to hire movers, but _someone_ was all, _‘what’s the point of having a truck if you pay someone to move your stuff?’_ so, blame him.”

“Oh, I do, don’t worry,” Angela says, glaring at Tim. “Where’s Sterling?” 

“He got stuck doing reshoots for his movie, so he won’t be home until Monday, but it just means I have time to put my stuff where I want it, and he’ll be too lazy to move it,” Jackson says. 

“He probably won’t even notice it,” Lucy laughs. “We called in a ringer though, to make up for him, no worries. Nolan”s out of town, but Harper--”

“Is here,” a voice calls, tapping on the door frame lightly. “And I brought donuts, after a _1:30AM text message_ essentially demanded it. _You_ need to lose my number,” she says, holding the box out to Jackson. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he mutters, digging into the box. 

“I’m gonna guess you two had fun last night. You look _rough,”_ Harper smirks. “Good last night as roommates?”

Tim watches Lucy pout slightly and lets her unfold herself from under his arm to go wrap her arms around Jackson’s torso. 

“We don’t remember all of it, _clearly,_ but yeah. It’s a little sad to leave this place, it was pretty good to us.” She smiles, catching his eye. “But change is good, too.”

\----------

The guys start making trips down with the furniture that will go to Sterling’s -- and now Jackson’s -- house, and Lucy gets dressed and finds Angela and Nyla out in the kitchen, wrapping up the last of the unpacked dishes. 

“Thanks, guys,” she says. “We were going to have a final packing party last night, but then, well. _Dranks_ happened,” she shrugs. 

“No big deal,” Nyla says. “I think I could pack in my sleep, I did it so much in my 20s.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “This is the longest I’ve lived anywhere as an adult, actually, It’s a little weird.” 

“You ever lived with a boyfriend?” Angela asks from her spot perched on the counter, halfway through a donut. She seems to be supervising, and Lucy loves her a little bit more for it. 

“Not really? I let an ex start living with me, but that was… _a mistake,”_ she says, “And no other roommates since college, besides Jackson, of course.” 

Angela and Nyla exchange glances, and Lucy feels a little bit like the rookie again, a little out of the loop, wanting to fit in with the older, cooler girls. “What?”

Angela clears her throat and leans back to check the doorway. She leans back in and watches Lucy for a moment. “Tim’s not a _roommate,”_ she says. 

“Tim’s a _man,”_ Nyla adds, and Lucy smiles.

_“Oh,_ don’t worry. _I know,”_ she laughs, raising her eyebrows.

“Oh, _ew,_ no, that’s not what we mean,” Nyla says, at the same time Angela says, “gross, no thanks.”

Lucy frowns, not entirely sure she gets it, then. 

Nyla takes pity on her. “The last person Tim lived with? He _married_ her.”

“Tim’s a good man, he’s responsible and he’s kind of an ass, but he _cares,_ maybe more than anyone I know,” Angela says, and the look she gives Lucy makes her feel like they’re waiting for her to freak out.

They know Tim, but not in the same way she does. She’s hungover, and tired, but she still woke up as soon as her alarm went off this morning, because she knew Tim would be right on time, because he’s _excited,_ and so is she.

“I know all that, I promise. This wasn’t something we decided randomly, or something I jumped into. Tim’s the best man I know, it’s my favorite thing about him. He brings up the eldery neighbor’s garbage cans when he walks Kojo in the morning, and he responds to fifteen drunk text messages when he’s half asleep, even if he doesn’t understand them,” she says. Angela smiles a little, maybe a little proud, of her or Tim, she can’t tell. “And when we decided it was the right time for me to officially move in, we did it because we know this isn’t something that’s going to end tomorrow, or next month, or next year.”

“He loves you,” is all Angela says, and Nyla nods. 

“I love _him.”_ And, _god,_ she does, and has, for going on a year, and even before then, if she’s being honest. “And I love that you two are protective of him. He deserves it… but you don’t need to protect him from me.” 

They smile, and the sound of the door opening sets them all back in motion. 

\-----

She takes a couple boxes down a while later and finds Tim rearranging the bed of his truck. It’s hot, even this early, and even in the shade of the parking garage he’s flushed, sweaty. She stands a few feet away to appreciate the view until he turns around and hops down. 

He smiles, that quick, easy grin she likes to think is just hers. “You look more awake,” he says, taking the boxes from her. 

“Coffee and sugar will do that to you,” she laughs, watching him lift the boxes like they’re nothing, his muscles moving gracefully under his t-shirt. She frowns as she scans the bed of the truck, though.

“Babe?” He turns toward her, maybe recognizing the hesitant pitch of her voice. “The lamp? It’s Jackson’s.”

He huffs out a sigh. “You mean _that_ one, the one I carefully wedged in there, so it wouldn't break?”

“That’s the one,” she grimaces. “I’m sorry.” 

He shakes his head, like it’s no big deal. “Here, will you--” he shifts a couple things around and hands her a box, making way to slide the lamp out.

“You made that look effortless,” she says, laughing. He hops down with the lamp and she slides the box back in its spot.

“I played a lot of Tetris growing up,” he shrugs. He wipes his hand across his forehead, and she watches the sheen of sweat disappear in its wake. 

“Where are Jackson and Wesley?” 

“They left a while ago to take the first load to Jackson’s.” 

“So you can take a couple minutes to cool down in the AC, have some water,” she urges. “C’mon.” He trails her to the elevator, lamp in hand, and she takes the few seconds before the elevator arrives to watch him, the set of his strong jaw, the way his shirt clings to his chest with sweat. It’s the next best thing to him being shirtless.

They step on the elevator and she leans into his space to press the button for her floor, and then just lingers there, leans up and presses her lips to his jaw. 

“Lucy,” he warns, and she smiles against his skin. 

“Can’t I just kiss you?” She asks, words he’s asked her a thousand times when he leans in to kiss her randomly while they’re watching TV or doing dishes or stopped at a red light. 

“I’m sweaty and gross,” he says, like she hasn’t seen him after a million workouts or foot pursuits or that long afternoon in July when his air conditioner broke down and they spent half the day contributing to the drought in his shower, the water cool over their heated bodies.

She trails her lips down his neck, the salty tang of sweat cool against her tongue. “You’re _hardworking_ and _hot,”_ she corrects, grinning as he shivers when her words heat his damp skin. 

“Whatever gets you home with me sooner,” he whispers, and the shiver that sends through her has just as much to do with giddy joy as it does her current proximity to his gorgeous body. 

She reaches down to move his hand and guide the lamp to the elevator floor so she can pull his arm around her waist and lean up to kiss him, his lips cool and easy under hers. The elevator has always been slow, and she’s never been happier about it than when his hand skims her hips and his mouth opens under hers. 

The ding of the elevator arriving at her floor registers slightly, but his hand has just tangled in her hair, so she doesn’t pull away immediately, and it’s another noise that ultimately pulls them apart.

_“Good lord,_ really?” Angela’s incredulous voice makes her press her cheek to Tim’s shoulder and bite her lip as she finds Angela’s mock-exasperated expression where she’s standing right outside the elevator doors. “You guys are about to get a whole damn _house_ to yourselves, isn’t that _enough?”_

She can almost feel Tim roll his eyes. 

“Definitely never enough,” she smiles, pressing a kiss to the sweaty fabric of Tim’s shirt and backing away. 

They all walk down the hallway, and Angela yells as they open the door.

“Harper, they were out there making out in the elevator, like we aren’t in here packing the rest of the apartment.” 

Nyla comes out of Lucy’s room, her hands full of large garbage bags. She rolls her eyes. “Of course they were,” she says, and Lucy laughs. “Bradford, I hope your closet is big, Chen here has more clothes than anyone who wears a uniform 50 hours a week should.”

“Doesn’t need them,” he says, settling his long body onto a bar stool as Lucy grabs him a cold bottle of water from the fridge. She recognizes that flirty hint to his voice immediately, so his fingers hooking into her waistband to pull her against his chest isn’t a surprise at all when she reaches him with the water. “Clothing optional house,” he finishes, and she laughs, the combination of the cold bottle against her back and his warm skin _so good._

“Blech,” Angela groans, but it almost sounds sweet. 

“Be that as it may, they’re all ready to go,” Nyla says, dropping the bags at Tim’s feet. 

The door opening and Jackson’s voice interrupts whatever response Tim might have had, and they all turn toward him and Wesley walking back in. 

“Lopez, your man has some secret lawyer muscles, the boy is strong, you should get him an application for the LAPD,” he says. 

The chorus of “Absolutely not,” from both Angela and Wesley makes them all laugh, Tim’s reverberating against her body, and Lucy feels happier than she can even handle. 

—————

“Last load’s good to go,” he says, finding her in the middle of her empty bedroom a while later. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I just wanted a minute. I’m gonna miss this little room.”

He presses his chest against her back and his lips against her neck, wraps his arms around her waist. “I know.” 

“I sat on the floor with Jackson, right over there, and he let me cry when I came home from the hospital,” she says, pointing out vague shapes where her furniture used to be. “And I stood in front of the mirror over there and stared at my tattoo for an hour the night you told me it made me a survivor, just to figure out if I could feel it too.”

He presses a kiss to the curve of her neck and just breathes against her, giving her time. She has to talk it out slowly, he knows, it’s how she processes, how she starts fresh. 

“You fell asleep on the couch during the movie on our second, third? date, and when I woke you up, you kissed me and trailed me to bed instead of saying goodnight.” 

“The room has some good memories for me, too,” he assures her. 

He shifts slightly as she turns in his arms and looks up at him. “And now, you’re going to kiss me one more time in this room. And then we’re going to go home.”

He smiles. “Oh? You’re sure that’s what’s going to happen?”

She nods, her body warm against his, and presses up against his chest to anchor herself. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” he says. He crooks a finger under her chin to tilt her head up and kisses her slowly, giving her time, so she can process it. 

——-

He watches her a few minutes later, standing off to the side of the parking garage with Jackson, exchanging quiet words. Jackson will turn one way when they leave, and she’ll follow him out the other. 

He watches them laugh and hug as Angela sidles up to him. 

“They’re good. We got good last Boots,” she says, her eyes following his line of sight. “But don’t ever tell them that.”

“Oh, god no,” he agrees. 

“You ready for this?” She asks, and he can feel her eyes on him. 

“Unloading this stuff and unpacking everything? Sure.”

_“Tim.”_

“It’s not a big deal,” he shrugs, but he knows better than to look at her. 

He watches Lucy pull back from Jackson, her eyes wet, and turn to smile at him, holding up her keys and gesturing toward their cars. “You ready?” she calls. 

Beside him, Angela snickers. 

It’s a big deal. 

——-

They unload most everything into the garage for now. It’s not a huge house and most of the furniture is something he already has. They’ll figure it out as they go along. He’s not worried. 

They all cool down and rehydrate in the living room after the last box is unloaded, and he glances around when he realizes he hasn’t seen Lucy in a couple minutes. He wanders down the hallway until the sound of her gentle voice talking to who can only be Kojo leads him to the bedroom. _Their_ bedroom. 

“You okay?” He asks, sticking his head in the doorway. 

“Yeah,” she grins, and his heart clenches for just a moment. “Kojo was just welcoming me and helping me decide what to do with my clothes.”

Nyla was right, she _does_ have a lot of clothes, all of which are piled in garbage bags on the bed currently. 

“I think I do have too many clothes, I can donate—“ she says, and their sentences overlap. 

“The closet isn't big enough, but you can put whatever doesn’t fit here in the guest room closet.”

They both smile when their sentences process. 

_Are you ready?_ Yeah, yeah, they are. And it’s gonna be good. 

“Hey!” Harper calls from down the hallway. “I’m afraid to walk in there, but you guys promised us beer.”

“And pizza,” Angela yells. 

He turns to Lucy. “Did you promise them beer?”

She shakes her head. “Pizza?”

“Nope.” He rolls his eyes. Scammers. But they did give up their days off to do something that’s notoriously hated, and it’ll still be cheaper than paying movers. 

“Come on, let’s go. We owe them. We can figure out what to do with your clothes later.” He sneaks a couple fingers in the waistband of her shorts and snaps the fabric against her skin lightly. “We can start with these.”

She grins, and _god,_ he loves her. “I’ve got some ideas about these,” she says. “And yours too, while we're at it.” 

“Looking forward to it,” he smirks, letting her move around him toward the door. “Hey.” 

He reaches out a hand to circle her wrist and turn her back to him. “Welcome home,” he whispers. 

She smiles, bright and happy, and the room feels alive around her, bubbling with an energy he’s hoped for longer than he can remember. 

She leans in and kisses him, slow and steady, like they’ve got all the time in the world, her hand on his cheek. “You too.” 

He wants to tell her he’s home no matter where he is — this bedroom now full of clothes, the empty one he kissed her in, any parking garage or elevator, every shop he’s ever driven — as long as she’s there too. 

She kisses him again, and he _knows_ she knows. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! As always, comments and kudos are love! (They're definitely better than moving.)


End file.
